We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Deformation of Earth can occur with a range of time-scales including attenuation of seismic waves (at a time-scale of ~1–103 s), post-glacial crustal rebound (~1010–1011 s), and deformation associated with mantle convection (~1014–1015 s). Theoretical analyses of observations on these processes of time-dependent deformation provide us with clues as to the non-elastic properties of Earth's interior. However, the time-scales, and hence the strain (and stress) magnitude involved in these processes are different, and therefore microscopic mechanisms can be different among the deformation involved in these processes. A brief review is presented on the essence of these processes including the nature of deformation and the methods of studying them, in addition to some of the representative results.
Key words seismic wave attenuation, Q, post-glacial rebound, relative sea level, geoid, dynamic topography, isostasy.
Time-dependent deformation and rheology of Earth's interior
Observations on time-dependent deformation of Earth provide important constraints on the rheological properties of Earth's interior. Time-dependent deformation of Earth can be directly observed from seismic or geodetic measurements or indirectly from gravity measurements. These phenomena have different time-scales and different strain (stress) amplitude. Consequently, different physical processes may operate for different time-dependent deformation processes.
For seismic wave attenuation (or Chandler wobble), deformation occurs at short time-scales (1–103 s for seismic waves, ~107 s for Chandler wobble), low stress level (< 103 Pa), so deformation is linear but strain involved is small (~10− 6− 10− 8). The distribution of non-elastic properties for this time-scale is well determined mostly from seismological observations.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
